One of the latest additions to the Xbox Live Arcade family seeks to finally settle the raging score between some of life’s most entertaining figures, namely ninjas and pirates. Of course, without the bitter rivalry between ninjas and pirates, the popularity of similar creatures of zombies and robots would certainly wane. Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball wants to determine once and for all which faction is worthy of being the coolest, strongest, and all-around greatest, all in some rousing games of dodgeball.

Unfortunately, all Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball manages to do is frustrate and annoy players into oblivion. The idea behind the game and the title may well be the best parts of the entire package. First things first: the actual game that you play is not really dodgeball. While it might loosely resemble the classic game we used to play in gym or in the streets while our parents screamed at us to get inside and eat dinner, the only aspect that is retained is the fact that you throw balls. Aside from that, there is nothing within the game even remotely close to the real playground battle royale.

In an attempt to make it a deeper game than it actually should be, a story mode was included. My first playthrough was as the Ninja team (I don’t actually prefer ninjas OR pirates, but that’s all you can choose at first). There are no cutscenes, just scenes with accompanying text to read as your character speaks to various acquaintances and for some reason engages in dodgeball games. I actually found the scenes to be mildly entertaining due to the humor that was implemented, but without voiceovers, scenes, or any movement whatsoever, the entire ordeal quickly turned very bland.

The first matchup I received was against a zombie team in a spooky graveyard. Cartoony, lumbering zombies were pretty sprightly, considering they’re dead and all. I discovered without reading the instructions that all you need to do is run over a ball wherever it lands on-screen and pick it up. Of course, this is no easy task. Sometimes you can be standing right on the ball and your character won’t respond. In later matches where you have multiple balls to choose from, this can be overcome quickly, but when there are one or two and your partner is holding one, this can become quite the annoyance. It happened so often that I began to wonder if I had performed some kind of misdeed so that I wasn’t allowed to make any shots.